Global: Freedom in the World 2008: Global freedom in Retreat

The year 2007 was marked by a notable setback for global freedom, Freedom House reported in a worldwide survey of freedom released this week. The decline in freedom, as reported in Freedom in the World 2008, an annual survey of political rights and civil liberties worldwide, was reflected in reversals in one-fifth of the world’s countries. Most pronounced in South Asia, it also reached significant levels in the former Soviet Union, the Middle East and North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa.